News posts

Well folks.... A new competition, Map a Movie! has been started. You have 30 Days to come up with the most mind blowing map you have ever made, based on the movie of your choice.

New tutorial from Vassy that let's you in on the secrets of the Custom Game setup, check out Setting up a Mod: Part 1

And if you have a question about a specific tutorial, could you post it in the General Mapping Questions forum until we get the tutorial forums sorted out...

Also, you might notice some new screen shots in the Map Vault. Some of the files are corrupt, some are missing or there is a chance that I couldn't download it because of one reason or another. If the file is there, let me know.

Yes, at last, we have a new forum system!

The transfer of posts from the old system went suspiciously well... I haven't moved the tutorial-specific forums yet though. I'll probably give each tutorial a thread in a special 'tutorials' forum, rather than have a separate forum for each tutorial. Coming soon.

There's a bit more planned for the new system that I'll implement in the next few days. Indicator icons, a mark-as-read system.... image bbcode ;)... and anything else anyone suggests to me

And the poll is over! The winner is fairly clear:

<SPAN STYLE="font-size:8pt;">Scenery</SPAN>
<TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="3" CELLSPACING="1" BGCOLOR="#cbc9b2" WIDTH="41">
<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#edebd4" ALIGN="right"><SPAN STYLE="font-size:7pt;color:#cbc9b2;">13</SPAN></TD></TR>
</TABLE>

<SPAN STYLE="font-size:8pt;">Unused models</SPAN>
<TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="3" CELLSPACING="1" BGCOLOR="#cbc9b2" WIDTH="38">
<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#edebd4" ALIGN="right"><SPAN STYLE="font-size:7pt;color:#cbc9b2;">12</SPAN></TD></TR>
</TABLE>

<SPAN STYLE="font-size:8pt;">Explosion sequence</SPAN>
<TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="3" CELLSPACING="1" BGCOLOR="#cbc9b2" WIDTH="50">
<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#edebd4" ALIGN="right"><SPAN STYLE="font-size:7pt;color:#cbc9b2;">16</SPAN></TD></TR>
</TABLE>

<SPAN STYLE="font-size:8pt;">Specific entity</SPAN>
<TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="3" CELLSPACING="1" BGCOLOR="#cbc9b2" WIDTH="19">
<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#edebd4" ALIGN="right"><SPAN STYLE="font-size:7pt;color:#cbc9b2;">6</SPAN></TD></TR>
</TABLE>

<SPAN STYLE="font-size:8pt;">Movie-based map</SPAN>
<TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="3" CELLSPACING="1" BGCOLOR="#cbc9b2" WIDTH="200">
<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#edebd4" ALIGN="right"><SPAN STYLE="font-size:7pt;color:#cbc9b2;">63</SPAN></TD></TR>
</TABLE>

<SPAN STYLE="font-size:8pt;">Something else!</SPAN>
<TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="3" CELLSPACING="1" BGCOLOR="#cbc9b2" WIDTH="19">
<TR><TD BGCOLOR="#edebd4" ALIGN="right"><SPAN STYLE="font-size:7pt;color:#cbc9b2;">6</SPAN></TD></TR>
</TABLE>

A contest will be launched in the next couple of days.

And last but not least Vassy has sent in another great tutorial : Re-Texturing Models. Worth a look even if you are a veteran mapper

Scroll down the menu bar to find... a poll! Use it to vote for the topic of the next contest. I'll explain the short topic descriptions in more detail here:

<UL>
<LI>Scenery: A map focussing on scenery. The HL engine isn't really suited to outdoors stuff, but that makes this all the more interesting.
<LI>Unused models: Peruse the HL PAK file, and you'll find several models that were never used in the game. Find an inventive use for one or more of them. The fact that most of them don't do anything makes this a challenge
<LI>Explosion sequence: ...or destruction sequence, rocket lift-off etc. Put the sprites, sounds and lights to good use and this could be very exciting.
<LI>Specific entity: Get given a specific entity to work with... OR... focus a map on one entity. Fairly open-ended, this.
<LI>Movie-based map: Take an idea or theme, or an object, or whatever, from a movie, and build a map around it.
<LI>Something else: If none of the topics blows you away, and 'something else' becomes the overwhelming vote-taker, we'll be forced to think up more topics.
</UL>

Thanks to everyone who submitted contest ideas - these are all them! BTW, you can only vote once every 6 hours :).

More site news: I'm redesigning the forums. Yay! Expect them to be a hell of a lot faster and easier to use than the existing ones. Check out my thread, where you can post any ideas you have for the new system.

Just in from SlayerA is a Single Player, Half-Life, 5 Map Mod/extension called "MINIMICUS" (3.3Mb). I have been following the development with interest for about a year now and it just gets better with the final release. There are some really tricky mapping subjects covered in this release. Have a good look and listen when you run this. I spent most of a day trying to work out how SlayerA created some of the stuff........ I gave up in the end and just asked him
Anyway, get on over to the Map Vault and download this...... and let SlayerA know what you think.

If you want to try CS mapping, check out both of pepper's CS specific tutorials : CS Mapping, Part 1: "The cs_map" and : CS Mapping, Part 2: "The de_map and as_map"

Vassy sent me a new tutorial explaining how to import Models and Textures from other Mod's for use in Half-Life. There are tons of Models out there, and this tutorial will help you to add them to your new map, even if the Mod isn't the same. Check out Importing Models and Textures

I know this took a long time, but life is a bit hectic, what with two Laptops blowing up and the dog of a machine I have now not wanting to run Hammer the way I like it....
Ok, enough of my bitching, pepper started the scripted tutorial with some great stuff, and I went and trashed all that with some drool of my own. Check out Scripted it has already been updated.

And late news in is that Seventh-Monkey has entered a new tutorial Textured Lighting which is a really basic mapping function, that is VERY important to all new mappers.

Oh, Happy Birthday Jobabob...

Happy Birthday Vassy!

And Seventh-Monkey has his b/day on Sunday, so Happy Birthday in advance to him.

There's an interesting new way to access member profiles - just go to http://cariad.co.za/twhl/?membername, replacing 'membername' with (you guessed it) the member's username. Could prove convenient.

My inbox is already bursting with contest suggestions. More, more, more!

And it only took a week and a bit this time to judge them. Congrats to everyone!

The more people send in ideas for future contests, the sooner the next one will be launched. How's that sound?

Other news... err... oh yeah, I'm trying out a neat trick that might let me put a 'IRC onliners' box on the menu bar. Now that would be nice, hey?

I'm sitting here with a proper net connection - the one at my mom's work - which got the whole Vault back online in 10 minutes, rather than the 3 hours it would have been at home. Nice.

Oh, and when I said that you weren't getting a full day extra for the contest, I lied. You're actually getting a day and a half extra. Err, sorry to those of you who nicely timed your entries. The rest of you probably aren't too upset though...

One other cool thing: it took the site almost exactly a year to reach 100 members. Two months later and we are at 205, with 20 arriving this week!

Shoutbox evidence of that traumatic move was (fortunately) flushed away when I eventually got the important bits of the database back up.

The contest has been extended by a day, but only really because it'll now be closing at midnight U.S. time (one of them), so you would have lost 8 hours otherwise.

The MapVault will be back to normal tomorrow, but everything else should be working fine already... now I could do with a break. That was one of the ugliest sessions I've had on my PC for a while, and I feel violated.

Finally, you can upload your own personal avatar! Go to the My Profile page after logging-in, and click 'Select'. You'll find a link in the popup.

Tell me if you encounter a problem, because I haven't done very much testing on it.

Now... if the site goes down tomorrow (or in fact, any time in the next few days), it'll probably be a good thing, because it means we're moving. If I mis-time the database and file sync it'll be a bad thing, so let's hope I don't :). The site should then be back up within a day... fingers crossed

Okay, so it's not completely off-topic. Y'know the shoutbox here at TWHL? I'm sure you do, and if you've used it, I'm sure you know how cool it is :). Well, I've just launched a brand new website that has a much fancier version that you can use in your own websites... for free, naturally!

Please check out bluebox, and give the 'chatterbox' a go - there's a demo here. And then tell all your friends about it

One of our Members has had an article published on Collective.
Congratulations go to Mike. You can check the article out at: http://collective.valve-erc.com/index.php?doc=1059416746-92484100

Yes, someone has already guessed... I fried my Laptop, along with two weeks work on a DoD map and my additions to the new tutorial by Seventh-Monkey. Oh well, maybe that is for the best.. (Back up always and often, who said that?)

Anyway, have a look at the new tutorial:
'Rain' it is a lot of fun, but a bit of an r_speed hog that might not be suited to all mappers. But it does work and that is the main thing. If you have any questions, I am sure that Seventh-Monkey will be more than happy to answer them.

Skeeve has kindly written two site pages for us: IRC help and a links page - something TWHL has needed for ages.

I've also finally written a Map Vault map delete function, so you can delete any maps you don't want in the Vault.

Contests... there've been so many requests I fear for my life now As a result, a new one has been launched: Trapped. You've only got two weeks, so get started right away!